well i'm john harshman in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture. the gun nuts on the right love to argue that the second amendment was created to help americans protect themselves from the government. and that as a result everyone is entitled to military grade weapons but in just a few moments i'll tell you about the real reasoning behind the second amendment and let's just say that the gun nuts are going to like it and as the debate over the debt ceiling continues to rage in washington the debate over comprehensive

immigration reform is just beginning to heat up president obama be able to score a major political victory and end this nation's failed war on illegal immigration in the process. you need to know this gun crazy america is arming up all vice president biden and his gun task fourth task force think of ways to stem the horrific gun violence in the united states the shootings in the gun purchases keep piling up according to the children's defense fund nearly four hundred fifty children and teenagers have been shot by a gun just since the one hundred thirteenth congress was sworn in earlier this month and thanks to the fear mongering going on the gun community assault rifles are flying off the shelves around the nation according to the national shooting sports foundation there were two point two million gun background checks performed

in december which is more than a fifty eight percent increase over the same period in two thousand and eleven but i want to tell you something you don't know about the second amendment something that has been lost largely in the pages of history although you can find it if you know where to look that is very crucial to informing everybody about today's current gun debate and that's this the real reason the second amendment was ratified and why it was state instead of country was to preserve the slave patrol militias in the southern states which was necessary to get rid genius vote for the constitution. founders and virginians patrick henry george mason and james madison were all totally clear on that and we all should be today today's second amendment is linked to our nation's disturbing history of slavery how in the beginning there were the militias in the south they were also called the

slave patrols and they were well regulated by the states in georgia for example the generation before the american revolution laws were passed and seven hundred fifty five and fifty seven they required all plantation owners or their male white employees to be members of the georgia militia and for those armed militia members to make monthly inspections of the quarters of every slave in the state the law defined which counties had to have our militia and even required our militia members to keep a keen eye out for slaves who may be planning uprisings as dr karl t. bogus that's his real name rode for the university of california law review in one thousand nine hundred eight quote the georgia statutes required patrols under the direction of commissioned militia officers to examine every plantation each month and authorize them to search all negro houses for often c.

of weapons and ammunition and to apprehending give twenty lashes to any slave found outside plantation grounds. this is the answer to the question raised by the character played by leonardo di caprio in django unchained when he asks this. some. critics only wish they'd just rather kill the what. if that movie had been real it would have been a purely rhetorical question because every southerner of the era knew the simple answer well regulated militias kept the slaves in chains sally hayden in her book slave patrols law and violence of virginia in the carolinas notes that although eligibility for the militia seemed all encompassing not every middle aged white male virginian or carolinian became a slave patroller there were exceptions so that men in critical professions like

judges legislators and students could stay at their work generally though she documents how most southern men between eighteen and forty five including physicians and ministers had to serve on slave patrol in the militia at one time or another in their lives and slave rebellion for keeping those slave patrols busy that had a constitution was ratified hundreds of substantial slave uprisings that occurred across the south blacks outnumbered whites in the large areas and the state militias were used to both prevent and to put down slave uprisings as dr bogus points out slavery can only exist in the context of a police state and the enforcement of that police state was the explicit job of the militias. if the anti-slavery folks way up north figured out a way to disband or even move out of the state those southern militias the police state of the south would collapse and similarly if the north were to invite in the

military service the slaves of the south which they could then emancipate that would collapse the institution of slavery and the southern economic and social systems all together these two possibilities worried southerners like james monroe george mason who owned over three hundred slaves and the southern christian evangelical patrick henry who close opposed lavery on principle but also opposed freen slaves their main concern was that article one section eight of the newly proposed constitution which gave the federal government the power to raise and supervise a militia could also allow that federal militia to subsume their state militias and change them from slavery and forcing institutions into something that could even one day free as slaves this was not an imagined threat famously twelve years earlier during the lead up to the revolutionary war british lord duns more offered freedom to slaves who could escape and join his forces liberty the slaves

was stitched onto their jackets pocket flaps during the war britain the revolutionary war british general energy clinton extended that practice and seven hundred seventy nine and numerous freed slaves served in general george washington's army thus southern legislators and plantation owners lived not just in fear of their own slaves or belly but also in fear that their slaves could be emancipated through military service. at the ratifying convention in virginian seven hundred eighty eight patrick henry later doubt he said let me here call your attention to that part article one section eight of the proposed constitution which gives the congress power to providing for our organizing our mean and disciplining the militia and for governing such part of them as may be employed by the service of the united states by this or you see that their control over our last and best defense is unlimited if they neglect or refuse to discipline or arm our militia

they will be useless the states can do neither this power being exclusively given a congress the power of appointing officers over men not disciplined or armed is ridiculous so that this pretended little remains of power left to the states may at the pleasure of congress be rendered nuggets tory or negative dead george mason expressed a similar fear quote the militia may be here destroyed by that method which has been practiced in other parts of the world before that is by rendering them useless by disarming them under various pretenses congress may be glad to provide for arming and disciplining the militia in the state governments cannot do it for congress has an exclusive right to arm them under this proposed constitution and reason bluntly later doubt if the country be invaded a state may go to war but cannot suppress slave insurrections under this new constitution if there should happen to be an insurrection of slaves the country

cannot be said to have been invaded they cannot therefore suppress it without the in her position of congress congress in congress only under this new constitution can call forth the militia. and why was it the that was such a concern for patrick henry well as he said we were not so hard pushed as to make emancipation general but acts of assembly passed that every slave who would go in the army should be free patrick henry's also convinced that the power over the various state militias given the federal government and the new constitution could be used to strip the slave states of their slave patrol militias he knew the majority attitude in the north opposed slavery and he worried they'd use the constitution to free the south's slaves a process then called manumission the abolitionists would he was certain to use that power and ironically this is pretty much what abraham lincoln and doing as patrick henry said they will search the paper that could the constitution and see

if they have power of manumission and have they not sir have enough power to provide for the general defense and welfare may they not think that these call for the abolition of slavery may they not pronounce all slaves free and will they not be warranted by that power this is no ambiguous implication or logical deduction the paper speaks to the point they have the clear the power in clear unequivocal terms and will clearly and certainly exercise it he concluded by saying this is a local matter and i can see no propriety and subjecting it to congress james madison the father of the constitution and a slave holder and self basically called patrick henry paranoid he said i was struck with surprise when i heard him express himself alarmed with respect to the emancipation of slaves there is no power toward it in that paper the constitution if there be i know it not. but the southern fears wouldn't go away patrick henry

even argued that southerners property slaves would be lost and the constitution and the resulting slave uprising would be less than peaceful or tranquil he said in this situation i see a great deal of the property of the people of virginia in jeopardy and their peace and tranquility god so madison who had at jefferson's insistence already begun to prepare a proposed amendment of the constitution changed his first draft of one that addressed the militia issue to make sure it was an ambiguous that the southern states could maintain their slave patrol militias his first draft for what became the second amendment ad said the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed a well a well armed well regulated militia being the best security of a free country but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms should be compelled to render military service and person but henry mason and others wanted

the southern states to preserve their slave patrolled militias independent of the federal government so madison changed the word country to the words state and redraft of the second amendment into today's form that says a well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed little in madison realized that one day in the future weapons manufacturing corporations newly defined as persons by a dysfunctional supreme court would use his slave patrol militia amendment to protect their right to benefactor and so assault weapons to be used to murder school children i just thought you should know this hidden history of the second amendment. still ahead the obama administration is pushing strongly for comprehensive immigration reform signaling that the nation's failed war on illegal

immigration might finally be coming to an end there are republicans in congress willing to play ball and work with the president to give immigrants a legitimate shot at the american dream. let me let me i want to know why don't let me ask you a question. here on this network is what we're having a debate we have our knives out. the truth is this right it's about staying there if you get here in a situation where being i didn't mean to talk about the surveillance. you know how sometimes you see a story and it seems so for lengthly you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom hartman welcome to the big picture.

here is mitt romney trying to figure out the name of that thing that we americans call a dollar. i'm sorry i missed the guy who cares an awful lot about my country music stars are a fool you know what kind of mind their terrorist cells in your neighborhood all want to give us a defeat terrorism a liberal and a christian point you. can secure the borders. you know that we're going to distract us from what you and i should care about because they're profit driven industry that sells us and facials that garbage because of breaking news i'm having martin and we're going to break that.

in screwed news last year the federal government spent a whopping eighteen billion dollars on the failed war on illegal immigration that's more than every other federal law enforcement agency spent last year combined that's also eighteen billion dollars that could have been put to better uses like helping to rebuild our struggling economy so it should come as good news that according to new york times the obama administration will continue its calls for comprehensive immigration reform which includes provisions for high skilled workers students and a pathway to citizenship for immigrants who achieve legal status of course many

republicans aren't happy about the administration's plans but it looks like president obama might get some help from an unlikely source evangelical religious leaders some of of america's most popular evangelical pastors and religious leaders launched a new campaign today to support immigration reform and to get congress to pass legislation the evangelical immigration table a coalition of evangelical churches and organizations hopes to get one hundred thousand churches across the nation on board with the campaign so will republicans listen to a major portion of their support base and help pass comprehensive immigration reform or will they continue to play partisan politics as usual joining me now is david silly conservative commentator pro-business advocate and clarissa martinez the castro director of immigration at the national council of la rosa welcome to both of you david eighteen billion dollars was spent on immigration last year you're a numbers guy isn't that old nervous amount of money to waste. absolutely and i

think this is really indicative of how recklessly the administration has managed our money you know right now there is probably a significant amount of people in your viewing audience who is out of work we've got to set aside the immigration issue we have to set aside the gun issue forget about the obamacare issue and introduce a comprehensive jobs program and put americans to work not to crease their odds of getting a job you know we have been overrun in many cases by unskilled unqualified working individuals and they have displaced an awful lot of minimum wage employees well these are people who are thinking david living in lower isn't in any way your closer what's what's your response to that there are there has been a change over the last couple of decades in things like the construction trades and whatnot to what extent has that been the result of successful union busting the you

know the the legacy of you of the reagan administration or of a large number of immigrants coming into the country and being willing to work at a low the prevailing wage well actually if we look at what the majority of economists say on the issue of immigration and they say that it generally speaking immigrations tend to compliment the american workforce and. david no no no is that why do we have a system where legal immigration channels haven't been working but when the economy was strong employers still needed folks and folks who are coming in what we have in for a number of us is an opportunity to put all this in check to put hot air aside and to actually create a solution. that overhauls our immigration system so that it works for the twenty first century in a way that responds to our economy but also the standards of the american worker

and having eleven. people who are undocumented who employers can exploited and pitted against american workers is something that really doesn't help anyone and david isn't that isn't that undocumented nature that arguably illegal nature of people in the workforce one of the things that is driving down wages in the us driving no demand because there's not as much wage money in the economy and also immigration entrepreneurship mit came out with a study this week the pointed out that that. two out of ten stood three out of ten students there at the almost thirty percent of the students are neither u.s. citizens nor for a residence which means they're what you would call an illegal immigrant at m.i.t. those people cannot leave mit and start a business in the united states if they were u.s. citizens they could this is the best and the brightest. you know that's great tom you know spoken on your program previously about what illegals have cost us by filing under this section one fifty two we're spending about twenty eight billion

dollars a year because right now on tax code illegal alien who gets a taxpayer identification number and files a tax return to claim dependence in mexico we're being raked over the coals and this is going to do nothing for creating jobs i wish the president would take his head out of the clouds and come down and give a damn about the american david are you serious that have somebody to clear declared a dependent in mexico and they get audited by the i.r.s. the i.r.s. . section one fifty two of the internal revenue code allows the deduction of dependents in the two contiguous nations mexico and canada however in mexico you don't have to proffer the same documentation because the theory is many of these families living rural areas and they may not have the documentation that we would. receive is so that's a fact isn't the solution to this to turn these people into citizens. why do we

have in front of us right now is the possibility unheard of republicans and democrats working together to make sure people who are here are undocumented come forward get good with the law and eventually are able to apply for citizenship and here's the thing the american public is in a much more pragmatic place on this issue than congress gives it credit for nobody believes that we really are the type of country who is going to hunt down and drag out eleven million people their majority of whom have been here for over ten years so let's come up with a way that people get good what the law with the responsibilities that that means and they become taxpayers in the way that everybody is but in a way that is regulated we have an opportunity to do that you mentioned at the. white house out come out strongly we have sen rubio representative ryan and a number of republican leaders say it's time to do this and we've been talking

about it for over a decade so we have an example of this ronald reagan declared actually an amnesty you know a word that president obama will not even go near for was a five or six million people one thousand of them he says they did call that program amnesty but the reality is that it involved people paying a fine coming forward having to be vetted going through criminal background checks that's what americans want to so many want that it was the my recollection is that the eighty's were relatively boom years it doesn't seem like the the david has prophesied and it came about as a consequence of those people becoming wait a minute until i get a word in here. sure. as i do very much by the way and i hope i was not rude there you were you know we have we have some very serious problems and what this woman is saying sounds really good on that space but we have to address the issues now if these individuals want to come forward now with a second you're not speaking to my question. was about to answer. you

yourself have been talking have talked very often about how good the economy was during ronald reagan's presidency how does you know and he made legal five or six million people during his presidency write reviews let it acted as a magnet it brought all these other people and the other issue that that is really overgeneralizing the thing is why do you try to think you don't have to say well it wasn't rulings it didn't happen and there reagan is that we kicked the can down the road down the road of actually fixing our legal immigration system so that it would respond to i'm evolving economy we haven't looked at those immigration laws for over twenty years imagine how many things have have been in that time so really what we need to figure out now is ok let's make sure that. the legality that has generated the growth in this population but simply burying

our hand in this sand and praying for this to go away at the tune of eighteen billion dollars in enforcement a year is not going to solve the problem david a recent report by the cato institute a conservative koch brothers funded is originally charles koch foundation reveals that comprehensive immigration reform is going to add one point five trillion dollars to our g.d.p. whereas a mass deportation would result in two point six trillion dollars lost to our g.d.p. both over the next decade why why are you not embracing this because of the dire straits that our economy is in you know just today i was watching the president say how we have to raise the debt ceiling so we can pay our bills and this is going to generate such more so much more debt you know if we're going to go through this process in the vetting how about this would this be for a compromise these individuals who would now be on this path to citizenship would not receive any state or federal benefits welfare under any euphemism have to

work on the books and such so as not to displace an american worker and not be a bigger burden on our financial system though they already have it already inside the possibility some people may need some of those benefits because they're operating below the poverty level or they have children in school and you would call a public education a benefit i would and i would consider call it a right but you know are you making the case let's put them on the books let's let's no no no the minimum wage at the very least you know pay them pay them living wages well that's what i understand you correctly called me in here illegally now you have a right to go to school it's outrageous what about us taxpayers who have to pay in and pay you know i spoke at our tax clinic last week with four couples two of which have been unemployed for a long period of time they live on long island their property taxes are sky high the. school portion of it is sky high they can't find work and yet they're carrying the weight of a lot of free riders and that's not fair again at the risk of being redundant we

need to set this immigration business aside for. president is going to go forward you have marco rubio in the senate and paul ryan in the house saying let's move this forward but as you said things to me gratian has an impact on an economy. and they reality is that just like every american family every day has to juggle i number of different challenges and responsibilities the least we can expect from members of congress is they can deal with more than one thing at the same time it is absolutely no barrier. to create jobs but it is important to understand at the immigration as part of that in there is a fair way forward for the american people on david thank you both thank you thank you it's.

crazy alert the light at the couple a couple months ago we told you about. a couple club in tokyo where patrons can cuddle with club staff now are experiencing a boom in business and popularity roll out a new. menu option human but that's right for eleven dollars a minute customers of soda and asked for the. service they get to rest their heads of the behinds of the club's female staff other services the club the clue foot massages back pats and even. a concept hasn't caught on in america the cultural clubs are beginning to for sixty dollars per hour you can visit jackie samuels snuggery in new york every nice cozy little snuggle with a complete stranger. coming up as much of europe continues to suffer at the hands of austerity one asian nation might be showing the entire world how to break away

from those devastating policies and principles what's going on in japan right now and has that nation come up with a solution for escaping the global recession. you

know how sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realized everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harvey welcome to the big picture.